Jennifer Garner's Crime Thriller Flop Is Taking Over Tubi's Charts

These days, we've moved beyond being spoiled for choice when it comes to streaming options. Now, we're perpetually menaced by an array of streaming platforms with kooky names and sonic logos designed to become tiny little earworms à la Netflix's famous "Tudum" sound. Not only are there multiple subscription services on offer, but we're now inundated with free VOD and streaming options that are supported solely by their ad revenue.

Tubi is just one example among many. The free streaming platform, which was bought by the Fox Corporation in 2020, has become what Wired called a "social punching bag," representing in the public consciousness a sort of bargain bin streamer that, in a pinch, might offer something entertaining enough to tolerate the relentless ad breaks. But as the outlet also notes, Tubi also has the biggest content library of any streamer, and this year, the service simulcast the Super Bowl, instantly increasing awareness of the brand among the masses. With 97 million monthly active users, Tubi might not be associated with prestige entertainment, but it's proven to be the most popular ad-supported streaming service out there. What's more, Tubi actually has some great horror movies, proving that there are gems to be found amid the mound of "content" on offer.

Like with the more well-established streamers (Netflix recently crossed the 300 million subscriber mark), Tubi viewers often send forgotten films and TV shows to the top of the most-watched rankings, and the latest example is a Jennifer Garner flop that seemingly has the Tubi audiences enthralled.

In the 2010s, Hollywood gave us a plethora of female badasses, from Charlize Theron's 2017 actioner "Atomic Blonde" (which features one of the most impressive stairwell fights in all of action cinema) to Jennifer Lawrence's "Red Sparrow" (2019). Sandwiched between those two female-led action thrillers was 2018's "Peppermint," which was a somewhat overlooked entry in this pseudo-genre of established female actors suddenly proving their action bonafides. Starring Jennifer Garner as a widowed wife and mother who goes on a rampage in a relentless quest for vengeance, the movie wasn't all that well reviewed upon its 2018 debut and fared quite poorly at the box office.

Now, it seems an unlikely savior has arrived in the form of Tubi, where "Peppermint" is currently proving popular enough to rank among the top 10 most-watched films on the streamer. According to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks and aggregates streaming viewership numbers, "Peppermint" hit the Tubi charts on March 27, 2025, when it arrived at number two. As of March 28, 202,5 the film had fallen to fifth place, but none of this is bad for a movie with a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Whether "Peppermint" can stick around or perhaps even make another run up the charts to regain some ground remains to be seen, but given the bewildering array of movies in the charts, I suppose anything could happen. The question is, should you join the Tubi crowds and give Garner's forgotten actioner a second chance?

"Peppermint" cost just $25 million to make. As such, its $51.8 million global box office take shouldn't seem all that bad, seeing as the movie ostensibly made its budget back. But it was hardly a huge success, and making matters worse was the critical response. Reviewers really didn't care for Jennifer Garner's action outing, which although it seemed to harbor similar ambitions to the well-received "Atomic Blonde," ended up being a derivative pastiche — at least according to Richard Roeper, who in his two-star Chicago Sun-Times review wrote, "In the stylishly directed but gratuitously nasty and cliché-riddled Peppermint, Garner plays essentially two characters cut from the same person."

Critics did at least acknowledge Garner's commitment to the role, with the actress training for months ahead of shooting to believably portray a vengeful mother with some serious combat skills. Otherwise, though, "Peppermint" was almost unanimously dismissed as a low-rent "John Wick" knockoff — mirroring how Tubi is perhaps viewed among paid streaming services.

As such, it might be a bit much to expect this movie to continue to climb the Tubi charts. Then again, Dylan Sprouse's "Die Hard"-like actioner "Aftermath" managed to dominate the Netflix charts in February 2025, despite being similarly derided as a pointless ripoff. Surely, then, "Peppermint" is in with a chance of topping the rankings over on Tubi, which in 2024 hosted "The Batman" and several other DC movies, just in case you thought the service was full of "Peppermint"-like duds.